Turtles

They sell pig hooves in the meats section. There are black chickens in the poultry aisle. MSG takes up nearly an entire aisle, and you can get rice in giant plastic sacks the way you might buy mulch or lawn fertilizer back home.

But my favorite part of the store is the large area in the center of the produce department, which can best be described as a small aquarium. Next to the weighing station, where I bring my bell peppers and granny smith apples to be stamped with a price tag, are a number of clear-plastic tanks that house a pretty comprehensive display of live sea creatures.

There are fish of various sizes and colors, a wide selection of critters you might expect to find on a snorkeling trip, a few things I’m pretty sure I had never seen before, and some turtles.

Yes, turtles.

In the supermarket.

There is a saying about the Chinese that claims they will eat anything that walks on the earth, swims in the sea, or flies in the sky. Evidently, they aren’t opposed to amphibious creatures, either.